""It looks very different than it did in 2001. There are fewer big threats and more small threats," said Brian Nussbaum, an assistant professor in the University at Albany's new College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity. His expertise is cybersecurity and terrorism threats.
"It's much more diffuse today compared to 2001, when there were a small number of Al-Qaeda components and three or four hot spots in the world," he said. "Now with the Islamic State and others, there are a lot more threat actors, they're spread out and they are more likely to be radicalized online. The primary concern was the Afghanistan-Pakistan border 15 years ago and today there are threats throughout North Africa, Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, Nigeria and elsewhere."
Nussbaum said the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels also highlighted a deep concern that today's terrorist networks have established themselves in Western Europe. "That's of great concern for a host of reasons, including the fact that Europeans have a much easier time traveling to the U.S. The other change is that some of the recent terrorists were only vaguely inspired by ISIS rather than directly dispatched by them.""
- Date Published:09/11/2016
- Original Publication:Times Union